EVALUATION

Q1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

I think that the conventions that I have used in my music magazine are both commonly and uncommonly found in music magazines. For instance on the front cover I used the title of the magazine and its logo on the right hand side of the page when typically it would be found on the left hand side of the page. Although in the double page spread there is no real unsurprising conventions used the ones featured are quite typically found in most magazines I think I stuck to more traditional conventions because that is what suited the article I was created and the artist that was featured in my magazine. I think a factor that makes my magazine different and perhaps slightly less conventional than others is the use of only female artists throughout the magazine so in this sense the magazine is very female orientated like my target audience was a so for this magazine. In this sense I think the conventions that I have used have helped to attract my female audience more than maybe they would have say if I had stuck to typical music magazine conventions which largely attract more men than women. I think the image I have used for my front cover has challenged conventions slightly also by having the artist not posing face forward I think it creates a greater sense of interest from the female audience because it features her hair and clothes that she is wearing more as well as her makeup this is something that I think women may see from far away and pay more attention and be able to identify the magazine through elements such as this. This is one of the conventions that I have developed throughout my magazine pages because I wished to create a female music magazine that also incorporated fashion and style within.

Q2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The media product I have created appeals to young women largely who are very interested in fashion and mainly music, it is a female focused magazine. It represents young females through the use of images of the artists that are used both on the front cover and the rest of the pages within the magazine. The articles mentioned on the contents, front cover and also the article itself on the double page spread would be of interest to women and girls aged between 16 to 32 mainly. The magazine that I have produced is not focused on a particular subculture or genre of music but is largely focused on a broad range of music genres. But the thing that all the artists featured have in common is that they are all women. The artist on my front cover is dressed in an iconic and individual styled jumper that can be easily recognised and stand out on a shelf. It is an item of clothing that is quite covered up without being conservative but largely appeals to and would attract other women rather than men. So in this sense I wanted to create a magazine that would represent successful women in music and their fans more because I felt it was a market and group within the music magazine industry that was not being represented as well as it could be. The props that were used in my magazine were not about trying to represent a subculture but more trying to make the artist I used look more like an individual because that’s what I wanted for the feel of my magazine. The props used throughout the piece were all different to create and show different sides of each artist and to make the look like individuals so that all the readers could really relate to their different personalities as different types of women.

Q3. What kind of media institution might distribute your product and why?

 I think that Condé Nast would be the best publication house to publish my magazine, i think this is because some of its magazines such as Vogue, Teen Vogue and Glamour already attract some of my target audience so I think that it would be able to help my magazine and give it help to attracting more of it's target market because it has a lot of expertise when it comes to successful women's magazines.Although this is not the only reason I think Condé Nast would be the best publishers for my magazine because they do not actually have a music magazine so I think although they would have expertise in my magazine in one way I also think that it would be bringing a new genre and element to their publications and it would feature a magazien that they and the market both did not have on offer. 

Q4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience for my media project is women aged between 16 and 32 mainly but I’m sure that girls both under and over the target age that I have set will also be able to relate to the product and find it appealing to them. It is largely targeted at women and it is aimed to represent female artists in the music industry, so naturally it only features female artists within the magazine. I found a niche in the music magazine market by researching into what types of people felt unrepresented in the music magazine industry and I found that a lot of women and girls felt that a lot of the large music magazines were aimed at men and didn’t feature a huge amount of female artists that women were inspired by and looked up to both for their music that the artist makes but they also wanted to know more about their interests, personality and style. So that is why I thought that M magazine would be appropriate for many women because it would cover a number of their interests.

Q5. How did you attract/address your audience?

I decided to make the pages of my magazine largely image focused because I wanted the readers to really see a lot of the artists in the pages of the magazine so that they could get a real sense of the artists style and who they represented. I think the cover would be aesthetically pleasing to the customer so I think by the costuming that I have used on the fornt page has made it quite attractive for my target audience and I think that it would be a cover that would catch their eye in a stall due to the clothes and makeup that I gave my artist for the front cover. The fonts that I have used on the front cover would also help to attract my audience to purchasing my magazine because they are quite feminine fonts that are featured on my logo and also in the main headline of the magazine where it says my artist’s name. But I have tried to keep it quite close to the key conventions of a music magazine by making the feminine writing contrast with a more bold and classic font that is very outline on the page keeping the look still like a traditional music magazine but also with a feminine touch to it. The colours I have used on my front cover also represent this as well I have gone for a pastel blue for the front cover although blue is traditionally a male colour I think the use of it in the pastel shade helps to bridge the gap between a traditional music magazine and a female magazine which is something I think is missing in the market. On the front cover I feel in the image used it is quite striking and would also address and appeal to my audience because the artist is covered up in a jumper but through the lips of dark red lipstick also shows her feminine side without looking overly girly or cliché which I think is something that my target audience would appreciate.

Q6.What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Before I started creating this product I did not know how to use Photoshop or even anything close to being able to open a page let alone a magazine I feel like I have been able to grow and develop my understanding of not only how to use Photoshop correctly but also what you need to be able to do to make a good magazine. I feel like when I first started using it some of the things I was doing on there were quite basic and did not take a lot of skill to do but it is through learning how to do different effects and techniques such as creating an outer glow on items or installing different fonts that suit my pages and help to improve them into what I imagined them being like. I feel that I have been able to develop my skill and technique on Photoshop but also I feel that through this over time my magazine has improved and turned into a far more professional looking piece than the one that I would have created at the start of this process.  

Q7. Looking back at the preliminary task what do you feel you have learnt in the progression form it to a full product?

As mentioned previously I feel like through what I have picked up and lessons that I have learnt throughout this process of creating and developing a magazine I have been able to create a product at the end that is far more professional than the one I would have been able to create at the start of this process. I think that the lack of effects used on my first preliminary task shows that I was not as comfortable and confident using Photoshop as I am now. I think I have also been able to create a product at the end that attracts to a target audience more than the original magazine that I made did, because in the preliminary task I do not think that I had created a magazine suitable for a target audience. 

Q8. Evaluate how successful your product is with your target audience using audience feedback

From the audience feedback I have received I think that my magazine has been successful in attracting my target audience which I was really pleased about, I asked a sample of twelve girls between the ages of 16 and 19 which falls into my target market group who all said that it is a magazine that they would be interested in buying because it would save them having to buy a lot of magazines a month both for music and fashion separately where they found that this would be an alternate option where they could buy one magazine that would cover all their interests and save them money. One bit of feedback I received from a couple of the people that I asked was that they felt that although they liked the idea they didn't feel that the cover star was into their type of music for looked like an artist that they would not really listen to. however the answer to this is that as the magazine had different issues I would be able to use a larger range of female artists on the cover which would appeal more to them. I also explained to my feedback group that within the magazine there was lots of artists of different genres it was just what they had in common was the fact that they were all female not that they all did the same genre of music.